News

EL AL Venture Fund Cockpit Innovation Partners With Boeing

February 21, 2018 | Cockpit Innovation, a venture fund of EL AL Airlines, has partnered with Boeing, the American aircraft manufacturing giant, according to a statement from EL AL. Boeing and Cockpit Innovation plan to identify, support, and scale groundbreaking technologies for potential application in the aviation and aerospace industries. The partnership will also “help further the mutual mission to enable disruptive technologies that could play a role in shaping the future of travel, aviation, and aerospace, including Boeing’s products and operations,” the statement said. “Combining the wealth of industry knowledge and venturing expertise of both Boeing and Cockpit with new technologies will enable amazing new opportunities for startups in the fields of Travel, Aviation, and Aerospace,” Gonen Usishkin, CEO of EL AL Israel Airlines added. Cockpit seeks out and supports innovative startups in aviation, travel, and aerospace. Recently, the industry venture fund backed eight in various sectors. The fund also serves as a bridge between the startup community and leaders in the aviation and travel industry.

Moovit Raises $50M In Funding Round Led By Intel, Will Partner With Mobileye

February 21, 2018 | Israeli public transit company Moovit has raised $50 million in a Series D funding round led by Intel Capital, the investment arm of Intel, the company announced. The Moovit app provides real-time information on the fastest public transportation routes (buses, trains and underground) and has 120 million users in 80 countries. Mobileye, the Israeli-founded company that developed sensors for self-driving cars and which was acquired by Intel for over $15 billion, will be partnering with Moovit to incorporate its public transport data into Mobileye’s navigation system. Mobileye co-founder Amnon Shashua, senior vice president at Intel Corporation, and CEO/CTO of Mobileye is joining Moovit’s Board of Directors as an observer, Moovit said in a press release. The company said all of its earlier investors including Sequoia, BMW iVentures, NGP, Ashton Kutcher’s Sound Ventures, BRM, Gemini, Vaizra, Vintage participated in the funding round, as well as newcomer Hanaco. Shashua said in a statement, “Moovit is one of the world’s leaders in public transit data and analytics.The combination of Mobileye’s and Moovit’s technology and data will be instrumental in making cities ready for autonomous vehicles.” Nir Erez, Moovit co-founder and CEO, said, “Moovit expects to surpass 1 billion users by 2021 and to expand significantly the number of cities that use Moovit’s data analytics to improve urban mobility. We are especially thrilled about our plans to collaborate with Mobileye. It’s a synergistic relationship at an exciting time to be shaping the future of urban mobility.”

Israeli Digital Wallet Startup Colu Raises Over $20M In ICO

February 21, 2018 | Israeli digital wallet startup Colu has raised over $20 million in an initial coin offering (ICO), a means of crowdfunding via cryptocurrency, of its own cryptocurrency, Geektime reports. The Tel Aviv-based company, which uses blockchain technology to create local digital currencies, like its cryptocurrency Colu Local Network (CLN), has also raised $8.5 million in a round of financing with investors. Colu’s CLN currency allows local banks to perform financial transactions like currency conversion, payments, and loan services, using blockchain technology as a way to connect communities around their local digital currency. Colu first announced plans to raise funds in ICO in November 2017, although their original plan was to raise about $50 million. Colu was founded in 2014 by Amos Meiri, David Ring, and Mark Smargon and has offices in Tel Aviv and London.

German Firm Merck Sets Up $25M Fund To Tap Into Israeli Biotech Startups

February 20, 2018 | German science and tech company Merck announced the foundation of a pre-seed-investment fund of $25 million to tap into young Israeli biotech startups. The fund was set up in collaboration with China’s Wuxi Apptec, Arkin Bio Ventures, and Pontifax Fund. The fund, ExploreBio, plans to invest between $1.23 million to $1.75 million each in approximately four companies per year over five years. Merck has two tech incubators in Israel, one for medical ventures and another for next-generation electronics. The company employs 300 people in the country, a majority of them scientists. All three of its business sectors, Healthcare, Life Science and Performance Materials, have R&D sites in Israel. “Israel’s start-up spirit is unique and so inspiring. We are proud to be an active part of this great success story. Now we are taking a next important investment step as we believe in the innovative potential of ExploreBio,” said Stefan Oschmann, Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO of Merck, in a statement.

February 20, 2018 | Booking.com, one of the biggest travel and airfare aggregator companies in the world, announced that it would hold a three-day accelerator program next month in Tel Aviv for Israeli, Italian, Romanian and Greek early-stage startups. Nine participating startups, six of them Israeli, will attend Booking.com’s Booster Lab at the Mindspace building in Tel Aviv from March 6-8 for workshops and mentoring sessions with the company’s experts. The startups also have a chance to pitch their plans for grants between $12,000 and $30,000. David Vismans, Chief Product Officer at Booking.com, said in a statement, “We are excited to be hosting these inventive startups at our Booster Lab in Tel Aviv next month. These intensive programs enable us to connect with, inspire and ultimately fund some of the next great innovations in sustainable tourism.” The six Israeli startups taking part in the program are bitemojo, which developed an app that offers off-the-beaten track food experiences; Knowers, a travel platform that connects travelers with locals for information; FarmGuests, a platform that allows rural tourists and agribusiness owners to connect; accessibleGO, a platform for travelers with disabilities; paratek, a company offering services that make treks and outdoors activities accessible to the physically impaired; and Trailze, a platform for the less adventurous who still want to enjoy the outdoors. The three other participating startups are Romania’s Questo, an app that offers city tours created by locals, Italy’s Citynsider, a community of travelers who share tips on cities, and Greece’s Lightheat, which appears to be a solar energy company.

Israeli Visual Assistance Company OrCam Valued At $1B

February 20, 2018 | Israel visual aid company OrCam, which has developed a wearable and portable device that attaches to the frames of eyeglasses to assist those that have lost their vision, has completed a funding round that currently values the Jerusalem-based company at $1 billion, CEO Ziv Aviram announced Tuesday, according to Reuters. This puts them on the path towards a planned initial public offering (IPO), Aviram said. The company raised $30.4 million by selling a 3 percent stake to investors like Israel’s Clal Insurance and Meitav Dash. This brings OrCam’s total amount raised to $130.4 million thus far. The successful funding round was announced at the same time as the launch of the newest version of OrCam’s wireless smart camera, which attaches to glasses. The camera reads texts, barcodes, and even has facial recognition features, speaking the information into the ear of the user. OrCam was developed by Aviram and Amnon Shashua, the same Israelis who founded Mobileye, a company that has developed a vision-based technology that provides driver assistance for autonomous vehicles and was acquired last year by digital tech giant Intel for $15.3 billion in Israel’s biggest exit to date. Aviram also said that he estimates OrCam’s growth to surpass the success of Mobileye. “I think the potential for OrCam is even bigger than Mobileye,” he told Reuters, “This technology is endless. We just started to understand the tip of the iceberg of what can be done.” In a year, the company hopes to raise an additional $100 million from global funds before going public in the U.S. He hopes by then the company will be valued between $1.5 – $2 billion before it is listed on the U.S. exchange. OrCam’s customer base is expected to expand to include those suffering from dyslexia or general fatigue while reading, according to Aviram, with the company beginning to yield a profit in 2019.

Israeli Cybersecurity Startup MorphiSec Raises $12M

February 19, 2018 |Israeli cybersecurity startup Mophisec raised $12 million in a Series B funding round led by Orange Digital Ventures, the multinational’s early-stage fund focused on fintech. Also participating in the round were existing investors Jerusalem Venture Partners, GE, and Deutsche Telekom. The Beersheba-based company, founded in 2014 after growing out of Ben Gurion University’s Cyber Research Labs, developed a patented Moving Target Defense which is the foundation of its Endpoint Threat Prevention solution. The company says it “prevents threats others can’t, including APTs, zero-days, ransomware, evasive fileless attacks and web-borne exploits.” Morphisec President and CEO Ronen Yehoshua said in a statement. “We built Morphisec to become an essential part of every company’s security and IT operation, and to defeat attacks that other endpoint technology cannot.” The company plans to use the funds to expand its teams and build its business globally, Reuters reported.

Ecosystem Haifa 2018 Focuses On City As Center Of Digital Health Innovation

February 19, 2018 | Over 500 senior high tech executives, health professionals, academics, government officials and entrepreneurs attended the Ecosystem Haifa 2018 conference last week to focus on Haifa as a center of innovation and entrepreneurship as well as a global leader in the field of digital healthcare. The conference was led by former MK Erel Margalit’s National Initiative organization, the Haifa municipality, and the Haifa port, in cooperation with Haifa mayor Yona Yahav and Brad Bloom of the Boston-Haifa Connection, and with participation from global, high tech, research, academic and cultural institutions operating in Haifa. The conference, hosted by Margalit, is part of the Israel Initiative 2020 (ii2020), Margalit’s vision to create dynamic centers of excellence in seven regions throughout Israel with the goal of raising the standard of living and attracting employment, young professionals, and new families while also developing a regional ecosystem. “Haifa has pioneering research institutions, one of the world’s leading medical companies, the presence of multinational companies and a flourishing entrepreneurial scene – combining these four elements together, around the digital health field can create thousands of jobs here,” Margalit said, according to a statement. According to Margalit, Haifa has revolutionized its lower city and he “has no doubt” it will do the same with its downtown area. Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon opened the conference, announcing that the Ministry of Finance will be a full partner in the vision to transform the lower city into a center of innovation of entrepreneurship in the field of digital health. He also announced that American multinational corporation Intel will soon invest billions in expanding their production in Israel. This week, Globes reported that Intel is expected to invest between $4 to $5 billion into its expansion in Israel and that Kahlon made the announcement after receiving confirmation from Intel. Kahlon later revealed that Intel affirmed the planned investment with a positive response to a package of benefits they would be offered in exchange for the deal. At the conference, Intel Israel CEO Yaniv Gerti noted that more than 5,000 people are currently employed at the Intel branch in Haifa and that Intel will be expanding in the city and the region. He said that “the ecosystem created in Haifa provides us with a great environment for expanding activity and creating more jobs.” WeWork Israel CEO Benji Singer unveiled that WeWork is set to establish two WeWork facilitated spaces in the lower city and another one in a location that has not yet been revealed. Professor Rafi Beyar, director of Rambam Health Care Campus, also emphasized that Rambam wants to “bring down the barriers between medicine and research,” according to the statement, ” by connecting medical research to technology, digital health, and high tech leaders in the city.

Intel Expected To Invest Up To $5B To Expand Production In Israel

February 18, 2018 | American multinational corporation and technology giant Intel, who last year acquired Israeli startup Mobileye for $15.3 billion in Israel’s biggest high tech exit to date, is expected to announce an estimated $4 to $5 billion investment into expanding its production in Israel, Globes reports. Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon told the Knesset Finance Committee of Intel’s intentions today and said last week he had “received confirmation about this from Intel,” Globes said. Kahlon had already mentioned the planned investment last week at the Ecosystem Haifa conference, which led to speculation about the investment, and later admitted he wouldn’t have spoken about it without the approval of Intel. According to Globes, Kahlon revealed the planned investment upon receiving a positive response from Intel about a package of benefits it would receive in exchange for the investment. The agreement between Intel and the Israeli government will be presented to a committee of three including the Finance Minister Kahlon,, Minister of Economy Eli Cohen, and the head of the Israel Tax Authority. Sources told Globes they believe the package includes 20 to 30 percent of the investment in Israeli government grants and will probably include an upgrade of chip fab technology the Intel in Kiryat Gat, one of the world’s most advanced chip fabs.

February 16, 2018 | Israeli cybersecurity company Silverfort won the top spot in the Cybersecurity Excellence Awards’s Multi-Factor Authentication category, the company announced. The annual awards “honor individuals, products and companies that demonstrate excellence, innovation, and leadership in information security.” The Tel Aviv-based company, founded in 2016, developed a “platform that can seamlessly deliver strong authentication to every sensitive user, device and resource, across on-premise, cloud and hybrid environments,” without changes to user devices and servers. Silverfort co-founder and CEO Hed Kovetz said in a statement that the company was “honored to receive this award, which further validates our vision. We believe that user authentication must be reinvented to fit the current technology environment. Regular authentication solutions can no longer handle the scale, diversity and dynamic nature of today’s networks – integration becomes endless and many sensitive resources are left exposed. We present a new breed of authentication products that can instantly apply strong authentication across entire networks and cloud environments.”
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Israeli Startup CommonSense Robotics Raises $20 Million

February 16, 2018 | Israeli startup CommonSense Robotics announced that it raised $20 million in a Series A funding round this week led by Playground Global, and previous investors including Aleph VC and Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors. The Tel Aviv-based company aims to help online grocery retailers offer on-demand, one-hour deliveries using robotics and artificial intelligence. The funds will be used to expand the startup’s global operations. The company says its solutions enable retailers to shorten the supply chain with Micro-Fulfillment-Centers where robots sort and process inventory, and which are in close proximity to customers. CommonSense Robotics CEO and co-founder Elram Goren tells Techcrunch, “Our AI software breaks the order down into robot tasks, and finds the right robots to complete those tasks. We have robots that are capable of moving boxes (totes) around extremely efficiently and at high speeds. Our various types of robots will bring the right totes of products to a stationary human ‘picker’ who in turn packs the order, which is then sent by robots towards the delivery interface where orders are packed into a van or scooter for dispatch”. The company is set to deploy the robots in its first fulfillment center in Tel Aviv over the next three months, VentureBeat reports citing a statement from CommonSense, with plans to launch five spaces in the US and the UK in 2018.
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WeWork Relaunches Early-Stage Startup Accelerator WeWork Labs

February 15, 2018 | WeWork, the international co-working space giant co-founded by Israeli Adam Neumann, with 212 locations and more than 200,000 members, has relaunched its WeWork Labs accelerator program with 27 spaces secured in 16 markets for 2018, according to a report in Tech Crunch. The WeWork Labs program ran in 2011, but was neglected as the company focused on other initiatives. With the relaunch, WeWork wants to offer very early stage startups a place to work and learn. The company has already opened its first location at 205 Hudson in New York City and will open its second in the Soho West office on March 1st. WeWork Labs will be run by the company’s former Head of Digital Roee Adler. While most companies in an accelerator might pay for inclusion and space with equity, WeWork will continue its rent-based formula by asking companies to pay for space at a rental fee determined before membership. WeWork is setting up a loose curriculum where members will receive access to educational resources and courses. The company will also hold small group sessions and bring in guest speakers for discussions and lectures. There is no graduation date, although WeWork members and community members will work towards an established end goal. According to the report, the company expects community managers at each WeWork Labs location to be “potential mentors, vendors, customers or collaborators.” WeWork Labs does not want to compete with other accelerators, but does want to partner with as many organizations as possible. They are also looking to customize each program based on location of the WeWork Labs facility.

WeedMD Partners With Technion On Cannabis Database Project

February 14, 2018 | Canadian medical cannabis producer and distributor WeedMD has announced it has joined the Cannabis Database Project led by Israel’s prestigious Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. The two groups “will be collaborating in the research of cannabinoid and terpenoid profiles of 25 of WeedMD’s cannabis strains,” a statement said. The Technion has already profiled more than 150 strains, including all of the strains currently available under Israel’s regulated medical cannabis market. The data collected from this research will be added to an international database that associates pharmacological effects used to determine effective cannabis treatments for clinical purposes in Israel. The Cannabis Database Project aims to produce an integrated database with both clinical data on cannabis patients as and data on cannabis usage history for patients in Israel and abroad. Data from growers, HMOs, and other sources will be used for analyses aimed to identify specific treatments and organize them on a website for patients and doctors. “WeedMD is in a unique position to contribute data for our research studies and we’re proud to welcome them to our Cannabis Research Project,” said Dr. David Meiri, Head of the Laboratory of Cancer Biology and Cannabinoid Research at Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, who noted that members of the WeedMD team were recently hosted in Israel for important discussions on knowledge transfer and the collaboration.

Israeli Cyber Firm Perception Point Raises $8M For US Expansion

February 14, 2018 | Israeli cybersecurity startup Perception Point, announced that it raised $8 million in a Series A funding round, led by Pitango Venture Capital along with State of Mind Ventures (SOMV) and Korea Investment Partners (KIP). The Tel Aviv-based company, founded in 2015, said it will use the funds to expand its global presence and product portfolio. Perception Point specializes in cyber threat detection and provides cloud and email solutions. It claims to have developed technology that “intercepts advanced attacks at the earliest possible stage of execution.” Perception Point CEO Yoram Salinger said in a statement, “Companies across industries are undergoing a transformation. As more and more move to the cloud, they require security solutions that are equivalent in terms of speed, scale and flexibility, while also being effective against the more advanced types of threats. At Perception Point, we saw an opportunity to serve both requirements – fusing the flexibility of a cloud solution with the threat visibility only possible at a CPU level.” Rami Kalish, the managing general partner and co-founder of Pitango Venture Capital, will join the company’s board of directors, Perception Point announced. SOMV’s Pinhas Buchris, a former managing director of the Israeli Ministry of Defense, has been a member of the board since 2015 when Perception Point raised $2 million in a seed round led by SOMV.
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Visa’s New Innovation Lab In Tel Aviv To Tap Into FinTech Startups

February 13, 2018 | Visa announced that it is launching a new innovation studio in Tel Aviv this week, which will serve as a shared space for the US multinational corporation to work with Israeli FinTech startups “developing the next generation of payment solutions,” Visa said in a statement. The studio will be located at Visa’s offices on Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv, in the heart of the city’s financial scene. The company announced that it has selected four Israeli companies for immediate collaboration: AU10TIX, which automates customer ID authentication and onboarding initiation; HopOn, which has developed an innovative mobile payment and ticketing platform for public transportation; Idomoo, which offers personalized video as a service platform, and which in partnership with Arkia Israeli Airlines and Visa launched a local marketing campaign that addressed passengers with personalized videos on the advantages of using a Visa card at tourism destinations; and Personetics, which offers AI-powered cognitive banking solutions that allow for personalized customer experiences. Visa has innovation studios in Berlin, Dubai, London, Miami, New York City, San Francisco, San Paolo, Singapore, and Stockholm. The Tel Aviv studio will “streamline Visa’s integration with the local fintech start-ups, and enhance the collaboration with the local venture capital funds, other fintech centers, as well as Visa partners and customers in Israel and abroad,” the company says. Shahar Friedman, the head of the new studio and the acting general manager for Visa in Israel said, “Visa’s Innovation Studio is uniquely positioned to engage with Israel’s unparalleled fintech ecosystem as a gateway to thousands of Visa clients and retailers worldwide, who look for solutions to their challenges, or new ways to differentiate themselves in their competitive landscapes.”
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February 12, 2018 | Israeli entrepreneur Hila Ovil-Brenner has been appointed the new managing director of the Tel Aviv-based Barclays Accelerator, powered by the Techstars program, the two companies announced in a joint statement. Ovil-Brenner will manage the three-month accelerator, a unique international program for startups in the fields of cybersecurity and financial technology. Ovil-Brenner, a serial entrepreneur, is the founder of the WhiteSmoke Software company, and Yazamiyot, Israel’s largest community for female entrepreneurs. She also set up Google Campus for Moms, an international innovation program for new mothers on maternity leave, run jointly by Yazamiyot and Google. The Barclays Accelerator, launched in 2016, is a unique partnership between the British multinational bank and Techstars. It offers ten selected startups and entrepreneurs access to a wealth of resources, including experts, mentors, and investors in the fields of cybersecurity, insurance tech, fintech, and enterprise software as part of the 13-week program. The startups also have free access to the Rise Tel Aviv co-working space., and can draw up to $120,000 of investment from Techstars. Applications for the Barclays Accelerator close on February 25. The program will kick off on May 27 and conclude with a Demo Day on September 5 of this year.
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February 12, 2018 | The UK Israel Tech Hub, based at the British Embassy in Israel, announced the launch of the UK Israel Dangoor Health Initiative, a new accelerator aimed at connecting Israeli startups in the digital health field with the UK National Health Service (NHS). The British Ambassador to Israel, David Quarrey, will be hosting an event on Monday to launch the program. The accelerator will select at least two early-stage digital health startups each semester and provide them with the guidance and tools to navigate the UK’s health system. It is backed by British-Jewish philanthropist David Dangoor, son of Sir Naim Dangoor, and is named after the family. Dangoor told the British daily Jewish News this week, “we are absolutely at the threshold of a healthcare revolution and I’m hoping that Israel and the UK will be at the forefront of that, hand-in-hand.” The UK Israel Tech Hub is working on the program together with the IBM Alpha Zone accelerator, which will prepare and deliver those startups through their 20-week deep immersion program, and DigitalHealth.London, a program aimed to speed up development and digital innovations across healthcare and adopted by the NHS. Israeli digital health startups will be chosen by the IBM accelerator and DigitalHealth.London. The program will run for four semesters over two years.
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February 12, 2018 | Israeli cleantech startup MercuRemoval won first place in the seed track of the 2017 Global Ideas competition at the Cleantech Open awards, held in Los Angeles last week, the company announced in a statement. The environmental firm has developed a unique technology, under the exclusive license of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, for the removal of mercury emitted by gasses of various industrial processes. The Cleantech Open Global Ideas program is a global search for the most promising clean-technology ideas and is held annually in conjunction with Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW.) The runner-up in this competition was Matteco, a German startup manufacturing high-quality rubber products from recycled scrap tires. Cleantech Open is the world’s largest accelerator of early-stage clean technology companies and since 2005, has trained and supported 1,2000 early-stage cleantech startup ventures. In 2017, the accelerator became a program of the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI.)
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Israeli Fintech Startup Behalf Raises $150M

February 11, 2018 | On-demand financing company Behalf, which provides loans and on-demand payment tools to large and small business in the US, has secured $150 million in debt financing, the company announced last week. The round was led by a private investment fund managed by Soros Fund Management. Viola Credit of Israeli-based Viola Group also participated in the round. Both companies also made a private equity investment in Behalf. This replaces the $100 million in debt previously raised by the company. Brothers Benjy and Shai Feinberg founded Behalf in Ra’anana, Israel, along with Jeremy Esekow in 2011. The company’s software tech, based on big data, predictive analysis, and algorithms, allows users to get cash advances on the spot with flexible repayment terms.

AI-Powered Catering Startup Platterz Raises $15M

February 11, 2018 | Toronto-based AI-powered corporate catering platform Platterz has recently closed a $15 million Series A funding round led by Tel Aviv-based firm Aleph Venture Capital, the company announced this month. The ‘predictive meal builder’ platform providing on-demand catering options for corporate lunches, meetings, and events, plans to use the funds to “accelerate product development and global expansion in 2018”, according to a statement from the company. Platterz was founded by Israelis Eran Henig and Yishay Waxman, who came together when a mutual friend introduced the two entrepreneurs, the Financial Post reported in 2016. Both had already exited other tech companies. Aleph is also the venture capital fund with investors behind WeWork and Lemonade. Other investors in the Platterz investment round include existing investors AltaIR Capital and Globalive Capital.

Taiwan Science Ministry To Set Up Tech Division In Israel

February 11, 2018 | Taiwan’s Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) announced that it will be launching a new tech division in Israel, expected to be in operation this summer, according to a report in the Taipei Times. A source in the ministry, speaking to the news site on condition of anonymity, said, “Taiwan and Israel are very similar — both are densely populated and have limited resources,” adding that Taiwan is seeking to draw on Israeli research and expertise on artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and biomedical tech, and its experience in developing innovative business models. The official said Taiwan will send local talent to Israel to work in the high-tech field through the ministry’s “Learn, Explore, Aspire, Pioneer” program, which sends persons under 40 years of age to the US’s Silicon Valley and France for 6-to-12-month internships. The ministry has 16 overseas tech divisions that work with Taiwan’s Foreign Affairs offices abroad.

Israel Is 3rd Most Educated Country In The World

February 9, 2018 | The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, an economic organization with 35 member countries creating policies to improve economic and social well-being around the world, has ranked Israel as the 3rd most educated country in adult education of 10 listed countries, above the United States, which came in 6th place. The OECD looks at adult education level as defined by the highest level of education completed by the 25-64-year-old population in three areas: below upper-secondary, upper secondary and tertiary education in the form of a two-year degree, four-year degree or vocational program. According to the OECD, 49.90 percent of Israeli adults between the age of 25 and 64 have completed some kind of adult education, almost 4 percent above the US. Canada ranked as the most educated country with 56.27 percent and Japan came in second place with 50.50 percent. Other countries on the list included South Korea in 4th place, the United Kingdom in 5th, Australia, 7th, Finland, 8th, Norway, 9th, and Luxembourg, 10th.

5 Israeli Universities In Top 200 Asia University Rankings For 2018

February 8, 2018 | Five Israeli universities — Tel Aviv University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, the University of Haifa, and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev — ranked in the top 200 of the 350 institutions published in the Times Higher Education Asia University Rankings 2018 this week. The 6th annual Asia University Rankings 2018 published by Times Higher Education weekly magazine ranks the top 350 institutions from 25 countries/regions based on the same criteria as the World University Rankings, but “recalibrated to reflect the attributes of Asia’s institutions,” Times Higher Education said. Tel Aviv University was the highest-ranked Israeli higher education institution, taking the 25th spot in the rankings, but slipping three spots from last year’s rankings. Hebrew University took the 27th spot, while Technion ranked 41st. The University of Haifa took the 100th place and the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba was in the 104th spot. The rankings for these institutions are based on 13 performance indicators across areas that include teaching, research, international outlook and more. The National University of Singapore took the #1 spot for the third year in a row. China’s Tsinghua University and Peking University — both institutions that collaborate with Tel Aviv University — came in 2nd and 3rd place behind the University of Singapore.
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Israel Diamond Exchange Launching Two Cryptocurrencies

February 8, 2018 | The Israel Diamond Exchange is launching two separate digital currencies, Reuters reported this week, in an effort to revive the industry, make trading more efficient, and more transparent. Eli Avidar, managing director of the exchange, told Reuters, “This industry is facing challenges, and this is going to in a lot of aspects address those challenges … the profitability element of the business, the speed of doing business, money laundering aspects and the problematic elements of banking nowadays. The first coin will be known as the Cut, and will be “available only to dealers on a peer-to-peer basis,” with traders from around the world being eligible to “receive digital wallets after being vetted by the exchange, similar to today’s background checks,” according to the report. This aims to solve money transfers between traders and retailers. Pre-sale of the coin started this week and use of it will commence over the coming weeks, Avishai Shoushan, CEO of the year-old CARATS.IO, which created the coins for the exchange, told Reuters. The second coin, Carat, will be issued later this year and is meant “for institutional and retail investors who want to invest in the diamond market without taking possession of physical diamonds,” the report said. “We are creating a way for people to invest in the market without actually buying and selling diamonds,” Shoushan explained.
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February 7, 2018 | Florida-based medical device company Sensus Healthcare, a developer of non-invasive treatment of non-melanoma skin cancers using superficial radiation therapy (SRT), announced on Wednesday that it was opening an office in Tel Aviv to expand its footprint in the Middle East and Europe. Sensus Healthcare CEO Joe Sardano said opening an office in Israel, “the epicenter of cutting-edge aesthetic dermatology,” is an “obvious and natural next step” for the company as it seeks to bring its SRT-100 Vision systems, currently installed at Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva and Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv, to the world. Sensus Healthcare’s CTO Kal Fishman said, “A deeper foothold in Israel gives us access to collaborate with some of the most creative minds in the industry, which will ultimately help us to improve our technologies and expand our footprint across the globe.” He added, “Sensus’ commitment to non-invasive dermatological technology makes entering this progressive market a very logical choice.” The SRT-100 Vision system “features a unique integration of multimodality therapy and image-guidance technologies with software integration to provide enhanced precision, safety and quality in delivering SRT, electronic brachytherapy (eBx) and Grenz Ray therapy (GRT) in a seamlessly integrated and scalable platform,” according to a company statement. It received FDA clearance for the treatment of non-melanoma skin cancers and keloids in 2015.
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